In this episode Prof. Robin Chapman Stacey (University of Washington) chats to Niamh and Tiago about medieval Ireland's unique and remarkable legal system and the huge volume of law tracts that survive in both Latin and the Irish language. With topics ranging from status and gender to what happens when you get stung by a neighbour's bee, we discuss social theorising, how useful the study of law texts can be to the historian, and how astonishing it is that the Irish material, the most extensive in western Europe, is generally ignored outside of Ireland.

Suggested reading:

Robin Chapman Stacey, The Road to Judgment: From Custom to Court in Medieval Ireland and Wales. (Philadelphia, 1994)

Robin Chapman Stacey, Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland (Philadelphia, 2007)

Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin, 1988) [A bit outdated in areas but still the best introductory overview of the topic]

Fergus Kelly, Early Irish Farming. A Study Based Mainly on the Law-texts of the 7th and 8th centuries AD (Dublin, 1997).